


To Return the Favor

by Magnetism_bind



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Business Partners, Drunken Confessions, Drunkenness, Friendship, subtle influence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-12
Updated: 2018-07-12
Packaged: 2019-06-09 01:23:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15256326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magnetism_bind/pseuds/Magnetism_bind
Summary: Flint and Eleanor take turns sobering each up and offering words of encouragement.





	To Return the Favor

 

Flint looks up from his desk. There's someone on his veranda. He can hear the soft footsteps, someone taking care, trying not to be heard, and utterly failing. 

He moves quietly over to the window and waits, before reaching out and wrapping his arm tightly around the intruder. There's a gurgling noise and a faint "Flint."

He releases her at once. "Eleanor, what the fuck are you doing here?"

"Getting strangled apparently." She whispers.

 "I'm sorry but why were you on the veranda?"

She shrugs, a morose tilt to her shoulders. "I didn't want to be seen." 

He remembers how the veranda is positioned and frowns. "You climbed up there?"

Eleanor nods, and then, ever so faintly, hiccups. 

"While drunk." Flint finishes, a line of frustration creasing his brow. 

"I can climb things. Easily." She crosses her arms defiantly, glaring up at him.

 "I know that but..." He looks down at her and lets the sternness slip away. She is still young after all, and it's better that she did come to him in this condition than elsewhere, even if she did climb the veranda. "Why were you wanting to talk?'

"What makes you think I want to talk?" She taps her fingers on his desk and stares at the painting on the wall. 

This is the room Flint stays in when he has to stay in town, and can't take the time to ride back to the cottage. There are times he needs somewhere to go, away from the ship. It's a small room right at the edge of town, simply furnished but there is a painting of a house overlooking a cliff, and a shelf for books, if one were of a mind to put books there. Flint's thought about it. 

Eleanor walks closer to the painting. "Do you ever think about leaving here?" She begins.

"Leaving Nassau." Flint repeats, his fingers scratching through the short beard upon his chin. Why would he leave Nassau. After all the lengths they'd gone to get here, the sacrifices they had made. "Where would we go?'

Eleanor flinches at the words and he doesn't know what he's done. Whatever he said, he didn't mean it. He reaches for her hands as she sways. "Come here." He leads her over to the chair behind the desk and sits her down in it. "Stay there."

"Aye aye captain." She says mulishly, leaning back in the broad chair. 

She's not a girl anymore, she's a young woman, still worthy of protecting but he needs to let her stand on her own two feet. Metaphorically, as the moment he's just helped her sit. All of this runs through Flint's mind as he pours her some water and brings it over to her. 

 "Here, drink this." 

Eleanor accepts it with a suspicious look but drinks it. Then she wipes her mouth and sits back again, gazing at him. "You didn't answer my question."

"Nassau is my home."

"The sea is your home." Eleanor tells him, and Flint blinks at her tone. She's so certain of that. 

"The sea is..." Flint's not sure what the sea is to him. A refuge certainly, an escape, A way of life temporarily while he pursued his revenge, and an avenue forward for the future. Home used to be a house in London with welcoming arms and warm fires. Home is...

There's a gentle touch on his arm and he blinks again, returning to the present to find Eleanor gazing up at him intently. "I didn't mean to make you sad, I'm sorry."

"You did nothing wrong." Flint declares, patting her hand awkwardly and moving away to pour her more water. "Where would you go if you left Nassau?"

"I had a chance to leave, and I threw it away." Eleanor says very quietly. "All I know is that I would have had to give up what I had here, what I've worked so hard to build for a chance at happiness that seemed so..." 

The girl. Flint suddenly realizes what it is she's talking about. She's talking about that girl. That girl on her knees, the one who told them with her spirit broken, refusing to touch Eleanor, refusing to let her back down from that moment of confrontation. Max.

He should have words for here; he doesn't know what words to use. He doesn't want to give her advice one way or another. He wants to tell her that happiness is fleeting and she should seize any opportunity for it with both hands and run, run far away, that this island is nothing but an island. 

But he needs Eleanor strong, standing on her own two feet. He needs her to be the business partner at his side, he needs the cold-hearted bitch of a woman who can stand up to the captains of Nassau and tell them to fuck off back to the sea. He needs her here; and she's already made her choice. The crying girl in that room isn't going to trust her now anyway. Flint knows that well enough. 

He gives her more water, and gently squeezes her shoulder, causing Eleanor to look up at him. "Happiness is fleeting." Flint says softly, gazing into her young eyes. "And there are moments when you'll wish for it. But possessing your own future, being the captain of it, that is something no man can take away from you once you have it. You'll have to fight to hold on to Nassau, but you," he touches her chin, keeping her gaze focused on his words. Even if she doesn't remember everything he's saying tomorrow, she'll remember his tone, the feeling settling upon her now. "You are worthy of that fight, and you will be the victor here. All you have to do is hold steady." 

Eleanor takes a shuddering breath, a breath that betrays she's perhaps closer to tears than she wants Flint to know about, and nods. "You're right, of course." She sounds almost nearly her old self, and Flint smiles. 

"Now, are you staying here for the night, or would you rather go back to your own rooms?" 

For a second he thinks she's going to accept that offer and stay, curled up on the divan in the corner, sleeping soundly under his blankets. But he's breathed the fire back into her; he should have known better. 

Eleanor shakes her head. "I'll be going back." She rises to her feet, and her walk is steady across the floor.

"By the door if you please." Flint adds. "I'd hate for you to wind up with a cracked skull."

Eleanor's laugh is light, but sharp. "After all, where would your business be without your partner?"

She knows what he's done, and she's thanking him for it in her own way, but that's the last they will speak of it. Flint knows that. He watches her walk through the door and close it behind her. The silence fills the air. He's alone once more. He waits a moment to return to what he was doing, thinking on what he's done. Someday he'll pay for the things he's done, he knows this. But this, this twists in his gut. He should have told her to go to Max. He should have told her to be happy. 

Flint stands there, resting his hand on the corner of the desk, as though bracing himself, and then he puts himself back together, putting aside the thoughts of this night, and sits back at the desk. He opens his ledger and returns to the course he was charting.

 

*  *  *

 

Eleanor surveys him with something so foreign, so unattached to her relationship with Flint, that she doesn't recognize it at first. And then it hits her, disgust. Disgust and frustration that he would be so reckless, so foolish at this critical moment. She's expected better from him, but she never knew it was better, she simply expected something of him, because she expected nothing else from any other man. Even her father. But Flint. Flint is different.

He slumps against the desk, not meeting her eyes.

"I thought you were better than this." Eleanor's words are ripped out of her, harsh and stinging, but the disappointment in them rises higher and she sees Flint flinch at them. 

He shakes his head, reaching again for the rum. "You should not have. I never claimed to be."

She simply moves the bottle out of his reach with a sigh. "Perhaps."

He leans forward in his chair, and then suddenly slumps back, his hands clutching the arms of it as though steadying himself. "Are we ever to make this place what we will?" 

She doesn't know why he's asking. He's always been the one who steadied her, the one who sees clearly. The one who knows how to maneuver their paths to a future they can call their own. And here he is, uncertain. It's bewildering to see. 

She hadn't realized he was capable of uncertainty. It rocks her utterly. She takes the rum bottle and takes a swig of it, needing to steady herself before she steadies him. 

When she turns back Flint's eyes are hollow. He looks at her, beseechingly, seeking answers to questions she's not ready to hear. She needs him to be the steady one. She takes another swig, and a deep breath, setting the bottle down. 

"Flint, listen to me."

His eyes blink and focus, fixing on her again with renewed intensity.

"We will make of this place what we need it to be." From somewhere within her, she dredges up the words she needs to say here to him, finding the inspiration from a voice she heard when she needed it. "But you have to hold steady, we have to hold steady. There is no room for doubts going forward. You know that, I know that."

Flint nods in response, his eyes half closing again before he blinks sharply. 

There's a bucket of water in the corner and Eleanor brings it over to him. "Douse your head in that." 

He does, and comes up sputtering. Eleanor paces, biting her lip as she waits for him to compose himself. 

Flint stands. He nods at her. "You're right."

She knows she is. She also knows it's not that simple. They have to both believe her words, their words, to make it so. In time, she thinks, they will. But only time will tell.


End file.
